Delays, errors and aggravation

Monday 24 November 2003 00:00 BST

Advisers have to deal with a string of complaints from members of the public. This is just a selection of the dozens I dealt with:

One woman took the trouble of paying by text message, but still received dozens of penalty charge notices (PCNs). It takes me 28 minutes to get to the bottom of this, thanks to the slow system and my lack of experience. It turns out someone put in a zero instead of the letter O when entering the number plate. This simple mistake has caused months of aggravation for the woman, but it seems I am the first person who has tried to resolve the problem.

A company which pays the charge every day is waiting for a refund for five wrong fines since April. They are very angry. They say they have been in touch numerous times but never received a call back.

A furious customer rang to say he entered the CC zone at 6.15pm the previous night and stopped at three garages but could not find any payment points - a common complaint. He is not happy when he realises he may well have a fine. "That's just unbelievable. You're saying I can't pay it? And now you're going to fine me £40? It's a joke."

Another customer received hundreds of pounds' worth of PCNs despite paying the annual fee in March and contacting the call centre several times since. His cheque was cashed and has been scanned onto the system, yet it has not registered that he has paid. "I've got about 10 in front of me right now," he says. "The PCNs are coming in daily. If you can't help me I just want to take this to court because I want it sorted."

The manager of a car rental firm has been trying to transfer a PCN to the customer who was driving at the time, but the letter he sent explaining this was never registered in our system. By now the fine has escalated to £120. He shouts: "This is extortion, you know, it isn't legal."

Another customer who pays by text message has a fine which has now gone up to £120. He carefully followed all the advice, but no one told him that between 10pm and midnight, when the charge goes up to £10, you have to add the word "late" to your text message. This is not obvious on the website and is certainly not shown on any of the activation text messages sent to customers: this caller was told by text he had made a mistake - but not until the next day, when it was too late.

More than anything it is the endless waiting that gets to people. One customer said: "Whoever installed your system should be shot - and I know computers. I've waited up to 40 minutes some times." Another woman says: "This system stinks. Ken Livingstone needs shooting."

Not everyone gets treated badly - there are so-called VIPs who are on a fast-track system. Who makes up the largest group within the VIPs? Not celebrities, but MPs, says trainer Jonathan Smith. Why? "Because they have power."